During hot-forming of steel, an aluminum/silicon coating protects the steel surface from scaling or corrosion. This coating does not evaporate during the laser welding and therefore results in weak locations in the weld seam. In order to counteract this, coated components, in particular, custom-made metal plates (so-called tailored blanks or hotforming blanks) are previously decoated using a pulsed solid-state laser which removes a 0.5 to 4 mm wide strip of the coating along a subsequent weld seam. The weld seam thus becomes stronger, and the component can be readily used in hot forming. However, the advance speed, at which the laser beam is moved over the metal sheet is relatively slow so that the coating is removed in a reliable manner. It is also known during the laser decoating operation to additionally use brushes, which brush the surface of the metal sheet in the advance direction behind the laser beam. On the whole, however, laser decoating has until now been possible only in a very inefficient manner.